Q&A: A Drinking Water ‘Game Changer’

A boy drank water from a roadside tap in northern Indian city of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, March 21.

WaterHealth International, a social business that has set up drinking water centers in western and southern India, now purifies about 1.4 million liters of water a day, and serves around five million people.

In villages, the drinking water centers use untreated water available from the municipality; where possible, the projects use surface water. For the most part, or for about 70% of the water they treat, the centers use groundwater.

After removing contaminants with carbon filters or techniques like reverse osmosis, the water is disinfected with a proprietary ultraviolet light method. It’s then supplied to customers for for about 5 to 7 rupees (9 to 13 cents) for 20 liters of water. Results from fortnightly water quality tests are displayed at each plant.

So far, the group has been working in rural areas where there weren’t many options for people in the way of clean drinking water. That’s why their next project is a bit of a departure: Water centers across Bangalore, starting next month.

Bangalore already has a municipal water supply and conducts frequent water quality testing, but Vikas Shah, chief operating officer of WaterHealth’s India arm, believes they can still offer something more to city residents.

Edited excerpts from an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal: Don’t people in cities already have a lot of options for clean drinking water?

Vikas Shah: Let’s divide customers into three groups. One does not use purified water. One uses home-based, point-of-use purification.One uses packaged water.

For the first group there is an obvious benefit. They may not have been using purified water because they couldn’t afford it.

[For the home-purification group], the fact of the matter remains, when have you tested it? When a contract person comes to your home and says that person wants to do a test. For the remaining 364 days you have no idea. Your reverse-osmosis membrane or your UV light may not be working. It’s just your blind faith that you’re going with it. Here’s an opportunity where someone else is being a watchdog on the quality of your water.

For the third group, which is using packaged water, this is a value proposition. Commercial water is coming from an area about which you have no backround or antecedents. You can walk across to our plant and look at the quality report and our operator will explain how the plant works and you get it at a value of the cost.

WSJ: Where are you setting up in Bangalore?

Mr. Shah: We have a contract for Bangalore municipality to set up a plant in each ward. There are 198 wards, we have an agreement to install one plant in each ward.

We are already constructing in two locations. This will be a test case or a showcase to a large municipal corporation. It’s going to be, in my mind, a game-changer in urban drinking water.

WSJ: How many people can one plant supply?

Mr. Shah: Theoretically, about 25,000 to 30,000 people.

WSJ: Municipal water is also treated and tested. Whydo people feel the need for additional purification?

Mr. Shah: Here’s the problem - you need to be very sure that the transportation of water is also disinfected and not adding to the contamination. One of the things people need to check against is that at the dispensation point water is tested and make sure it still meets the quality check. That’s the acid test.

WSJ: Water purification can be wasteful. Reverse osmosis, for example, can lose three liters of water for every clean liter of water. How do you deal with water wastage at your plants?

Mr. Shah: Most of our plants operate at 70 to 80% recovery [Meaning a plant produces 70 or 80 liters of drinkable water for every 100 liters of raw water – WSJ].

In order to be in consonance with nature, we are setting certain kinds of vegetation in the plant that feeds on high dissolved solids. Coconut trees, citrus plants, they need high TDS water. They soak up the solids and the pure water permeates into the ground. This is what we are doing with the reject water.

The overall water that is rejected is not even in the thousand of liters, it’s in the hundreds. It's a very small amount of water. This is the best you can do with the technology today.

WSJ: How does that compare to the commercial water industry?

Mr. Shah: Typically, I would say 50% to 55% recovery is the norm.

WSJ: There’s a lot of concern in India about groundwater loss. How do you address that in your business model?

Mr. Shah: There are a couple of things we do.

Generally we use the source available from the local council; we don’t create our own source.

[When we use groundwater] we do a hydrological survey, where we try to determine what is the water table. They [the council] take approvals for digging tubewells.

At our WaterHealth centers we’ve started rainwater harvesting where we try to replenish soak pits. We try to replenish more than we extract.

Corrections & Amplifications: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that WaterHealth's purified water is available for 15 to 16 rupees for 20 liters. The project's centers have been providing water at a price range of 5 to 6 rupees for a 20-liter can, which has increased in the case of some centers to 7 rupees.